


in the blue of this life

by thelandofnothing



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Acorn Hall, Aged up characters, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Eventual Smut, F/M, Misunderstanding, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:40:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21752383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelandofnothing/pseuds/thelandofnothing
Summary: part of the gendrya gift exchangeprompt: "Silly, confused teenagers in love (aged up or simply later in the timeline) Gendrya in the Riverlands/at Acorn Hall with possible peanut gallery Brotherhood; Arya is finally understanding just what Gendry means to her and this realization leads to shenanigans and miscommunication, with possibility for love confessions and/or adorable, no-clue-what-they're-doing, but figuring-it-out-together smut"me: your wish is my command
Relationships: Arya Stark/Gendry Waters
Comments: 70
Kudos: 312
Collections: Gendrya Gift Exchange 2019





	in the blue of this life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chasingforeverandaday](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chasingforeverandaday/gifts).



> i've literally just shoved book canon all in acorn hall so that is my explanation for why jeyne and willow are there
> 
> i hope you like this one [chasingforeverandaday](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chasingforeverandaday/pseuds/chasingforeverandaday)
> 
> i really enjoyed writing this one so i hope you enjoy reading 
> 
> (chapter title: lazuli - beach house)

**(i)**

Arya is eight and ten when she learns Gendry blushes with all maids but her. 

She guesses that he wouldn’t see her as a maid, he would see her as Robb and Jon did or even Theon when he used to poke fun at her. A sister, and nothing more. 

But there’s some part of her, deep in the roots of her enclosed heart where only Gendry can get to where she knows that she is no longer a little girl. She’s no longer Arya Lumpyhead; her hair falls down her back in silky waves when Lady Smallwood brings a comb through her tangled knots more gently than she ever remembered her lady mother doing. They tried to stuff her in dresses and get her to stop ‘playing’ with swords, but she rarely listened. Instead, she muddied her breeches like any other squire and had a tongue they sang about on the docks. 

She is eight and ten when she sees Jeyne Heddle kiss _Ser Gendry of Hollow Hill_ and she is eight and ten when she sees him push her away with an angry glare. 

She feels something in the pit of her stomach, something so feral and gnarling she wants to claw it out with her nails that are laden with grit and mud. After a few days when she catches Jeyne being uncharacteristically giggly and her attention turns to Gendry who is by his lonesome, staring at his tankard as if it called his mother a whore. Jeyne continues to twist a strand of hair around a finger as if she was losing her mind, but Gendry continued to ignore her. That was when Arya simply smiled and realised her bull-headed friend had very little interest in the Heddle girl. 

“Why’s she being like that?” she asked Willow one day and the girl shook her head, rolling her eyes at her foolish sister. 

“Never thought I’d see her swoon, she’s actin’ like a stupid girl,” 

“Girls aren’t stupid,” Arya says under her breath, only men like Anguy thought girls were stupid and that’s what let them get away with all their arse grabbing nonsense.

“She thinks she’s in a bloody song!” Willow complained, swirling her cup of mead, “That a knight’s goin’ to come and swoop her off her feet.” 

And Gendry is a knight. _Ser Gendry of Hollow Hill_ but instead of kissing fair maiden’s knuckles, he glares and scowls and curses at her when she kicks his shins or calls him stupid. He is much like her in that regard because she is no lady and he is no long-haired knight. 

She sees the men of the Brotherhood are slapping him on the back, and he blushes crimson like a crab apple. Arya watches him in the corner of her eye; he isn’t smiling but that doesn’t mean the rogue of his cheeks isn’t extending down his soot-covered neck. She knows it happens when they were at the Peach too; when the whores make to sit in his lap, and he brushes them off mumbling and grunting like an angry bull. 

He meets her eye and lets out a smile, or what she knows is one because she sees the corners of his lips rise just a little bit. When they’re not fighting, he always wears the same soft expression and something in her heart has an inkling that it is just for her. 

The very thought makes her heart thunders in her chest like a horde of Dothraki screamers. 

**(ii)**

Arya is eight and ten when she sees the muscles on his back and feels a tightness in her belly. 

“Are you fucking her then?” she asks one day, sitting on the workbench of Acorn Hall’s small forge as Gendry works the bellows. 

The heat has her sweating through her leather breeches and her tunic, and she moves her fingers to the ties and loosens them. She knows she doesn’t have tits like the whores do but they’re there, they hurt like weights on her chest when her moonblood comes. Sometimes she sees men in the feasts stare at them and she thinks them quite stupid; how obvious it is when a man’s gaze lowers from her face. 

“Who?” he asks, almost disinterested as if he is hearing one of her japes again. He’s always told her she has a crude mouth for a lady, but he never tells her to stop. 

“Jeyne,” she offers, taking a bit of her apple and letting the juice run down her chin. She’s not a lady, she’s never been. Not even at eight and ten or in whatever dress Lady Smallwood coerced her into. 

Gendry hits his head on the hood of the furnace and starts to curse. He turns his outraged look at her, and she expects to see blush. Instead, she is met with his eyes; simmering blue like how Old Nan described the sea to thrash with all its monsters. She can already tell he hasn’t fucked the older Heddle girl; it is as simple as the look he gives but something deep inside her snags on how easy she can picture them together. A simple girl and a blacksmith, like the world had meant it to be and Arya was a fool if she thought she could stuff down her nobility as she did with the laundry in a bucket full of soapy water. 

The bull-headed idiot whom she knew as her best friend was much too hostile to everyone to admit such a thing but if she pesters him enough, he would always tell her the truth. The thought makes her much warmer than the forge can manage. 

She cocks her head and watches him swipe the sweat from his brow. 

“What...? No!” he yells defensively after a moment and when he reads the unconvinced look on her face his brows furrow deeper, “That’s none of your bloody business, alright? Shouldn’t you be helpin’ out?” 

She rolls her eyes. 

Because Gendry has always followed her, he was the shield and she was the sword but if he danced away with Jeyne Heddle who would guard her back? She didn’t trust much these days, not even Willow could get under her skin. But Gendry, Gendry was _different_. 

_ He means to leave me too.  _

“If I’m the lady you say I am then it is my business,” she told him, acting nonchalant to keep her face, “She’s pretty.” 

Gendry looks away and somewhat scoffs sending a flutter of confusion rippling through her belly. 

“She’s alright,” 

“She’s pretty,” she reiterated. 

“I don’t like pretty,” he enunciates the ‘t’ of the dreaded word and Arya’s bewilderment intensifies. 

When he meets her eyes, she knows in the deepest crevice of her heart that he’s serious. He doesn’t have to say so, she’s learnt years ago that Gendry’s main method of communication was always by his subtle twitches and looks. 

“What? You like cocks then?” she jested, and he rolled her eyes. 

“Shove off Arry,” 

“But you do! You don’t like ‘em pretty so that means you like…” 

“Women aren’t all just pretty, stupid,” he says and eyes out to the yard, “You better go now m’lady, Lem will come in and cuff me if he finds you in ‘ere” 

She hops off the bench and gives him one last glance. She knows what Lem thinks about them being around each other for too long and she knows that Gendry will take the brunt of the chastisement. She hates to think that he is the dirt beneath her boot because he could never see himself beyond the preconceived notions that shape their society and drive a wedge between them.

“If you don’t like them pretty then how do you like them?” 

He gives her glance and she can feel something under his gaze; something rippling and foreign that it might just make her legs shake like frogs. 

“ _ Wild _ ,” he offers, staring at her, “Smart enough to do more than run a home mayhaps. Now piss off before I rat you in to Lem.” 

He clicks his tongs at her, and she shifts, stifling a giggle that she knows he will give her shit for because she would sound like a lady. 

She waits a moment enough to sort the mess out of her head out before he’s scowling again and turns his back again, shoving the steel in the fire. But she stays there, long enough until his head turns, and he looks at her, really looks at her. 

“Come on m’lady, they’ll be missin’ you,” he says softly this time, his eyes taking on the colour of the sky on a pleasant day. 

All the sudden everything looks too peaceful, so she rolls her eyes and kicks a metal shard with her boot, sending it scattering into the dusty corners. 

“Stupid,” 

When she looks back, she can see him grinning. 

Later that night when the castle is asleep, Arya thinks about how he looked at her, how his eyes on her didn’t feel like her brothers’ warm gaze. Not when she was up to mischief, stuffing Sansa’s bed with sheep shit or running away from Septa Mordane. She thought of his back again, and the sweat running down the dip of his spine. She thought about his soot-black hair and his careful eyes that always soften unusually when she’s kicking his shins or pushing him over. She thinks about his arms and how large they seemed compared to hers; she’s surprised she hasn’t been caught staring when he picks up firewood or heavy load for the Brotherhood. She thinks about what those arms would feel like if they were gripped around her, pinching the skin and holding her to him. What it would be like to feel the warmth of his forge-born body, holding her close, not protecting her but keeping her safe, and warm, Just like she would to him. 

Her hands slink underneath her smallclothes and she closes her eyes thinking of angry blue irises under thick dark lashes…

Arya shakes her head against her pillow and retracts her fingers, burying her nose into the pillow and feeling the salt spill. 

Because in the songs the maidens lived happily ever after but in the real world, they had cut her father’s head off. 

**(iii)**

She’s eight and ten when she pushes him in the river. 

He had been pissing her off; calling her m’lady until she had enough of it and told him where to stick it. He had only laughed in his typical Gendry manner; face lighting up like the stars did on a clear night so she had pushed him into the river so her insides would not turn any longer.

She only pushes him in the shallows because she knows he cannot swim, but he still splutters like a fish so when she goes to help him, he pulls her in too. She lets the muddy water fill her ears and remembers how Theon would teach her how to swim in the hot springs of the Godswood. He taught her how to float on her back and he’d hold her legs and urge her to kick. 

“Can you teach me?” he asks her. 

He is watching her float on her back; her hair floating around her. There’s something in his eyes, she doesn’t know what to make of it but there’s no fear in the pit of her stomach. Just the odd feeling of security that always came with his shadowlike presence. 

“What?” she asked.

“How to swim?” he asks almost sheepishly. 

She shrugs and complies, pulling him by his forearms.

“You got to kick your legs like this,” she floats onto her belly and kicks her legs, sending water everywhere. 

He watches her carefully as if he is soaking up every word of her tutelage. She teaches him for hours until the sun is skimming the water's edge. 

She holds his forearms as he attempts to paddle into the deeper water. He is clumsy and often holds her arms too tight when he feels as though he were drowning. But by the end of the day when he had managed to at least brave the deeper water, his ego is inflated like a toad’s mouth and he is grinning ear to ear. 

“We’ll have to practice,” she tells him as they ring their clothes dry of the river water. She watches Gendry shake his hair like a mutt, and she feels a heaviness in her belly. When he looks up his blue eyes going black as the night. She knows why, because she had forgotten to wear her bindings that day across her grown breasts and the tunic, she had decided to wear was now translucent. 

Ser Gendry of Hollow Hill doesn’t run away, instead, she’s smart enough to know he’s beginning to stare at her lips. 

So she splashes him instead and he curses and splutters while she climbs up on the riverbank. 

“Come on, stupid,” 

**(iv)**

She’s eight and ten when he asks her to dance. 

There’s no one around in the yard of Acorn Hall except drunk old Tom who strums his lute and winks at her. 

“M’lady,” Gendry says, bowing mockingly and Arya kicks his shin with the toe of her boot.

She watches with glee as he hobbles around cursing her, but it doesn’t seem to dissuade him. He is in his cups, that much she can tell, and most men would be using the time to find a good room with a nicer whore. Instead, he’s stumbling around, grinning at her as if she hung the moon. 

“Do you want to dance?” he asks, holding out his hand, “Or do you want me to go get  _ Lord Edric Dayne _ ?” 

“Oh shove off!”

She moves to kick him, but he knows this game, so he shifts the side and holds her wrists, laughing while he does it. She gives in and lets his hands trail to her waist, and she wraps her arms around his neck, and they sway to Tom’s song. My Featherbed, he called it and Arya knew the lyrics off by heart. Gendry had never been so close to her, not since they were in Harrenhal or on the road, huddled together for warmth. She feels him hum along to the song; terribly off tune but the sentiment is what warms her right down to the tip of her toes. She can smell the feast on him and knows he is in his cups, but she lets him lead their swaying, hidden away under an alcove of the main yard. Only Tom knows they are there, but he keeps his song up. He wouldn’t give more than a wink anyway. 

Before she can comprehend anything else, Gendry moves into her space and kisses her firmly, not like how she imagined it would be the first time when everything tasted of river water and mud. He tastes like ale and certainty, and the feeling in her belly pulls stronger, so strong that she knows nothing this perfect could last much longer. 

“You’re so beautiful,” he slurs against her mouth and now she knows he has had far more to drink than she initially suspected, “So beautiful… I love you, Arya. I wish I had more… More to give you…” 

And there it was, and her heart quickens in her chest. Her breath catches and she feels panic seize her by the throat. 

“What’s t’matter?” he asks but she can tell he is seconds from falling flat on his face. 

“Don’t say that,” she whispers, pulling away and turning around back to the keep. 

_ Not when I know you cannot when you’re sober.  _

“Arya!” he yells but she cannot hear him over the pounding in her ears, “Arya,” 

She lets the tears fall down her face as she trudges to the trees on the outskirts of the keep.  _ Lady Sansa Stark _ was beautiful with her dresses and embroidery and her long shiny hair. Her lady mother too with her regal stance and lifted chin that made her father’s men bend at the knee. But Arya was not beautiful, and Gendry was talking horseshit. Because he had seen her caked in mud and shackles in Harrenhal, he had seen her with her hair hacked off and in a tunic five sizes too big for her small frame. Every time he saw her in a dress, he spurted wine from his nose as he laughed too hard. But he had called her beautiful and he had said he loved her. 

Hitting a fist against the first solid bark surface she can find; she assaults the bark until her knuckles are bloody. 

She moves to scream but nothing comes out. 

**(v)**

Arya is eight and ten when the world comes crashing down. 

Gendry doesn’t remember the night of the feast, not the day after or the moon after when she is sitting in the forge watching him work once again. If he does remember, she cannot tell by his body language; he is back to teasing her. 

She feels as though she drowned, as if the voices around her are muffled and she is alone on the sandy bank of the ocean floor. 

She pushes the feeling down and watches him as he pours molten steel into a mould, his brows furrowed in concentration. 

“Do you remember anything from that feast,” she asks curiously. 

He looks up at her, almost confused.

“The one last moon?” he asks, and she uses her nods as an affirmation, “Well… I remember drinkin’ with Lem and Harwin… And then waking up in the stables, I had hay in me mouth. That’s all, I think.” 

She does not let her heart sink; she sees to it by straightening her spine and raising her pointed chin as if she were her mother. It was alright if he did not remember, for she was not craven enough to keep it to herself. 

“What? I do something funny you aren’t tellin’ me about?” he grins at her. 

“Not do, you said,” she says under her breath and rolls her eyes. She does not want to have this conversation with him because she knows how bull-headed he is, “And it wasn’t funny.” 

“What’d I say?” he asks, finishing with the mould and moving a stool to sit near her, “Something stupid I reckon.” 

She looks at the yard suspiciously. She could tell him; she could ruin the peace between them when they were both standing on the edge. Because she knows where he stands now; he isn’t fawning over Jeyne Heddle and he doesn’t want to fuck any whore at the Peach. He kissed her in the dark. He wants her because he loves her, and she heard it with her own ears. She remembers Thoros saying that a drunk man didn’t tell lies, it was his only time to be truthful. 

“You goin’ to tell me? Or should I let you keep dreaming?” he teases, and she looks at him. 

“Stop being an arse,” she snaps, and he raises his brows. 

“Did I say something to offend you m’lady?” 

“Shut up,” he hisses and looks away, “Hardly.” 

“Did I talk about cocks?” he asks, and she screws up her face, “Then what?” 

She takes a deep sigh and looks at her hands, resting uselessly in her lap. 

“You called me beautiful…” she feels him jolt, “You said you loved me…” 

He’s stood up faster than she’s ever seen. 

“I didn’t say that,” he whispers in disbelief, backing away. 

She feels the fury start to spread like wildfire through her veins, making her blood run hot. 

“You did you, stupid oaf,” she slams her fist on the workbench and he looks up startled, “I heard you…” 

“I didn’t say it,” he hisses, looking wildly at what she assumes is the yard, “You’re talkin’ horse shit, don’t be sayin’ those things with people around.” 

She stares at him incredulously, feeling rage simmer to hurt and her heart starts to splinter. 

“You bloody idiot,” she whispers, and he doesn’t look up when she walks out, slamming the door to the forge. 

* * *

It is night when she sees him again, though she is not sure that she particularly wants to. 

“I’m sorry Arya,” he tells her, coming to sit with her on the riverbank.

She doesn’t respond and she feels him fiddling with the stem of a reed.

“Arya?” he asks, touching her arm and she shrugs him off, “Arya please.” 

“Fuck off,” she spits.

“No,” he says back stubbornly. 

She refuses to look at him, wills every ounce of her self-control to not listen to her foolish heart. 

“Leave me alone,” 

“Would you let me talk?” he asks, snapping at her. 

She caves and looks at him; there are tears in his eyes and the soot on the forge is still caked around his face. Something in her wants to reach out and feel the darkness on her on fingertips, so she is tainted and marked and no longer pure for selling to the highest bidder. But she is eight and ten, and she had learnt by now that no amount of running could separate her from the blood that ran through her veins. She is a Stark, as much as her father was. The wolf blood pulsing through her veins, her father had said so and there exists no shame for being the daughter of the North. 

“I didn’t mean to say what I did,” she looks up to him furiously, assuming he is continuing his ritual of stupidity, “Not that stupid, I meant about denying it all…” 

He sighs and she purses her lips. 

“I mean to say that what I said that night was true,” her eyes widen at his confession, “You are beautiful… Not pretty, not plain or…” 

“Wild,” she offers, feeling the corner of her lips rise. 

He smiles at her, softly at first. 

“Yeah,” he laughs like he just can’t believe it himself, “Wild and smart but beautiful and I know I cannot have you.” 

She grits her teeth.

“Why?” 

“What do you mean why…” his brows furrow as he moves to say more. 

“Why Gendry?” she asks again, more forcefully. 

“Because you’re a lady that’s why!” he yells and now his voice is full of fury, “Because I am a bastard and you are a lady and we cannot be together.” 

“Would you shut it for once!” she snaps and watches his angry gaze turn confused, “My family is dead Gendry! They’re all gone! I’ve got no one, the Boltons have Winterfell, they cut my father’s head off! They stabbed my brother and put his direwolf’s head on his body, parading him around for all to see. They slit my mother’s throat and threw her naked in the Trident! I’ve got no one! I’ve got no one but you.” 

She is crying before she can comprehend the tears. 

“I love you, you stupid idiot! You’re the only family I have left, so for once in your life shut up about me being a lady because Lady Arya died along with her father. I’m Arya, and I’m your friend and I will always be yours,”

He doesn’t look surprised, he looks… Awakened? Tender? She cannot decide on a word, so she leans forward to kiss the look off his face. Against her lips, he whispers like he did when he was in his cups. When she pulls away, he still has his eyes shut and his poised as if he were still kissing her. 

“Arya,” 

Her chest is heaving with exertion when she hears his prayer much like the one that aids her sleep. 

“Arya, I love you,” he says, opening his eyes, “I cannot lie any longer.” 

All she can see is blue; blue like Theon described the ocean off Pyke as to Jon and Robb. She lets out a soft sob and felt her eyes well with tears once again. 

“And I love you too,” she whispers, and he kisses her again, his thumb moved to underneath her eye to brush away the tears.

“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid my eyes on,” he tells her, looking down at her with bright eyes, “So pretty.” 

“I thought you didn’t like them pretty,” she teases sadly, and he brushes his nose against hers. 

“I don’t…but you are to me, in your own way,” he presses a kiss to her cheek, “Smart,” another kiss to the underneath of her jaw, “And beautiful, just like I told you.” 

He leans down and presses his body above her, submerging her under his weight as he kisses long and languid against her lips as if he were reaching into her sinew and stealing her soul out through her ribs with each embrace. 

“I want you,” she calls to him, and she prays her words will beckon him across the threshold of their attraction. Away from his insecurity of being baseborn, of being the bastard in which he categorises himself, “I want you.” 

She hopes Gendry can forget for a moment that she is valiant Ned’s little girl, daughter of the North and a Stark of Winterfell. She hopes from the bottom of her heart that she can just be Arya and he can be Gendry in the middle of these woods. She hopes he forgets the price of her virgin’s blood to the men who sit in castles, she hopes she never has to go back to such world and instead she could stay with Gendry, her sinew one with the roots of the trees she lays amongst. 

And whatever Gods are listening that fateful night seem to grant her a single wish, as she watches him shrug his cloak off and lay it on the forest floor. She is already moving by the time he turns to face her; her arse firmly planted on his cloak as he follows her. He moves on top of her on his hands and knees as if she is the prey and he the wolf. 

“Arya,” he says, blue eyes glimmering above her and before she can comprehend anything his mouth is back on hers, “I want you too, more than anything.” 

Something in them both snaps like a coil as they begin to move feverishly, all at once, hands and fingers flying at buckles, straps and ties. One moment, her breeches are sliding down her legs, over her boots to someplace else. He manages to get her out of her jerkin, loosening the leather ties with his deft fingers until all she is left in is her simple tunic that her nipples strain against from the chill of the wind. 

He attaches his mouth back against hers, and she pushes up against him because she is a wolf and although her mother is crying up in the Heavens, she is winter in all things, not just the ones that bind her to purity. 

He moans against her mouth and his hands begin to wander under her fabric barrier. She likes the way the callouses on his fingers catch roughly at her nipples, as he cups them in his hands and squeezes in curiosity. She wonders if he has bedded a woman, mayhaps he has but for some reason, she is at peace with the past. 

He slides her tunic over her head, and he lets his eyes travel over the lands of her pale skin, blue irises disappearing like the sun is against the canvas of the forest and the river. He leans down, below her chin and begins an assault of the tongue; attaching his mouth to one of her nipples where he sucks and nips until she whimpers involuntarily. He continues his ministrations down her flesh, kissing her navel on the journey south before he sits up abruptly. 

He looks up at her expectantly and she drags her bottom lip in between her teeth. 

“I heard… I heard that ladies like it,” he told her, blush lining his cheeks, “Said it’s better to do before the fucking.” 

She smiles at his shyness and she spreads her legs for him. His pupils blow wide and fat as he takes her in. He lowers his head experimentally and kisses the inside of each of her thighs softly before breathing over her warmth.

When his tongue meets her clit, she throws her head back at the sensation because no amount of groping at herself without a clue to what she was doing could have prepared her for how Gendry felt plastered against her cunt. Her hands find his hair and she pulls his raven strands until he moans against her folds and she falls back onto her elbows, unable to keep herself up any longer. 

“More,” she pleads because she cannot beg, she still has some semblance of control over her senses. 

He enters a finger and she howls, because although it is not that overwhelming; a man and a girl romping in the forest, she feels her nerves split as he slides his digit inside of her in tandem to the rhythm of his mouth. He is sloppy and unexperienced but what he lacks in knowledge he makes up for his determination and that is enough to spur her on until the coil in her lower belly snaps and she tumbles down an oblivion blind, soaking and  _ yearning _ . 

In the corner of her eye, she can see Gendry rise from her thighs, wiping his mouth and chin with the back of his hand. 

“Are you alright,” he asks, softly as if she would bolt like a mare if he scared her. 

She nods her head and he climbs on top of her, filling every empty crevice with warmth and something else she cannot quite wrap her head around. He kisses her again and she can taste herself this time on his tongue as he plunders her mouth relentlessly. But she is strong in her own way, she flexes her legs and tumbles them over until she is the one of top; each thigh straddling his waist as he tangles his fingers into her wild hair. 

_ Wild, smart and beautiful.  _

She is as naked as the day she was born, and she can feel the rough leather of his breeches against her bare legs as she rolls her hips against his. 

“Off,” she commands, scratching at the fabric and it would be the only time that she was pleased with how quickly he scrambled to do as he bid. 

She hears his boots thud somewhere near them, but she cares little when he is back to taking her hips in his palms and they begin to rock together, sending streaks of electricity skyrocketing up her spine. 

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he says, and the wind steals his words. 

She reaches down and traces his cheek. 

“You never could,” she tells him. 

As sweet as she attempts to be, she hopes for once he sees through a lie, she hopes that he will never know what anguish he caused to her heart, to the nights she spent gripped in the talons of uncertainty. 

She looks down to his cock and feels a pang of excitement and fear overrunning her senses. He is bigger than what she has seen foul men parade around with, and he is her bull; humble and honourable. She wants this; a new experience, a new step in the love she is certain she cultivated with Gendry since they were dirty, starving and angry children. The love they found on the muddy ground in chains and tears. 

“Do you know what to do?” she asks nervously, and he looks up to her, slightly in panic. 

“I…” he stutters but she has never been the hesitant one. 

She reaches forward to take him in her hand, stroking him the way she saw a whore once do and before she can question the impact of her actions, on her knees between his thighs, he groans low in his throat. 

“I’m not going to last… If you… Fuck,” he breathes and suddenly puts a hand on her wrist to stop her, “I want you.” 

She blinks and feels the blood rushing through the entirety of her body like a cacophony of nervous energy. 

“Do you know…” she starts and watches his brows raise, “Do you know where to put it.” 

She gestures down to his straining cock and he lets out a little laugh. 

“Yes,” he confirms, and she visibly relaxes, “I know. 

He lines his cock to her entrance, and she takes a deep breath before sliding down onto him, taking him bit by bit lest she feels like she was tearing as if she were fine paper.

“Arya,” he groans, and she watches as his eyes roll back, “Fuck.” 

After a moment she is seated fully on him, her hands splayed on his chest as she listens to his breathing. She feels a pinch of pain and stretching, but she wants more so she rolls her hips and the sensation is brutally different. He groans and her breathing becomes rough, little whimpers and moans escaping her lips. She moves faster and this time she spurs him on, asking him silently to move with her. He is gentle, of course, his hulking frame a juxtaposition to the tenderness of his thrusts. Soon one his hands leaves her waist and his fingers attach at her clit, rubbing blindly in time with their increasingly quickened movements that she cannot decipher if they have fallen into a succinct rhythm or they are fumbling as new lovers usually did. 

She can tell by his shortened spurts of breaths that he cannot last for much longer; he has been holding such pent-up frustration inside himself for too long. So, she wills him with the press of her thighs and her hands that move to his that are wrapped around her body. 

“It’s okay,” she tells him through her lashes as she throws her head back, “Come. Come for me.” 

He lets out a loud groan and spills inside her, unapologetic and primal as he continues to circle her clit. 

When they finish, she collapses on him and his arms go to wrap around her frame, holding her flesh to his. 

She catches her breath and then rolls to his side, slotting herself in the crook of his arm, resting her head on his chest so she can watch him looking up at the night sky with his free arm tucked underneath his head. 

“Let’s run away,” she tells him, the palm of her hand rests on his strong chest. He’s always been strong her brave but stubborn bull. She sits up when she hears a chuckle and looks down at him as her hair falls around her face, “There's nothing here anymore. We can get a boat to Essos, find a place, you can work as a smith and…” 

She’s stopped by his gentle fingers on the side of her face; tracing her cheekbones and brushing loose tendrils of dark hair away out of her eyes as he peers up at her. 

“As m’lady commands,” he whispers into the night. 


End file.
